Missing women: Serial killer or coincidence?

MUNCIE- When Tracey Rutel left Muncie on Aug. 12, 2013, she joined the ranks of women from around the state of Indiana who have gone missing.

Although Rutel's body was found two months later in a farmer's field in far western Indiana, questions about her disappearance remain. Chief among them: Could her fate be linked to that of as many as 10 missing women — including two from the Muncie area?

Or are questions about Indiana's missing women, circulating online and in tabloid TV shows, connected only by the hopes of family and friends who want to make some sense of the unexplainable, even if it leads to serial killer theories?

Authorities think it's unlikely that missing women cases as different as that of Brianna DiBattiste — a 25-year-old who disappeared from Dunkirk on June 16 — and two women who have disappeared from southwestern Indiana since July are related.

But, as Albany Police Chief Shannon Henry told The Star Press, the theory that there's a connection between the missing women can't be ruled out, if only for the sake of not slamming the door shut on any possible leads in the various investigations.

"I'm not taking that card off the table," Henry, who has led the investigation into the disappearance of DiBattiste, said. "I really don't think so. But could it be? I can't rule that out.

"We don't have credible evidence to believe that something like that has not happened. We don't have anything, any credible evidence ... that some serial killer is out there.

"We have nothing to believe that right now," Henry added. "But we have nothing to disprove it either."

There's nothing to link the disappearance of DiBattiste to that of Ashley Mullis, a 27-year-old mother of three missing from the Muncie area since September 2013, Delaware County Prosecutor Jeffrey Arnold said Monday.

Ashley Mullis(Photo: Photo provided)

"But I think anytime you have somebody willing to take a look at that bigger picture, it can't hurt," Arnold added. "When you don't have anything to go on, you better be looking outside the box."

It's not uncommon for families of missing persons to try to connect the disappearance of their loved one to that of another person, or multiple people, and blame those disappearances on a mysterious killer, said Bryan Byers, a criminal justice professor at Ball State University who has a masters degree in social psychology and 18 years of experience as a deputy coroner in northern Indiana.

"People in general have a difficult time understanding that their loved one would go missing," Byers told The Star Press. "It's incomprehensible to them. By trying to make a connection to another missing person or two or three is really an attempt to suggest there's something sinister, there must be someone who is involved in the disappearance of more than one person. They're looking for hope."

In recent days, the search for hope in the cases of several missing Indiana women received a lot of exposure online and on TV.

Theories abound online

On Facebook, including a page devoted to the disappearance of DiBattiste, recent posts alerted the other 4,000-plus members of the page that Nancy Grace, a nighttime talk show host on the HLN channel, was going to link DiBattiste to the disappearances of several Indiana women.

Grace never mentioned DiBattiste's name or showed her picture, but the program portrayed the disappearances as having occurred in a "small community," even though a hundred miles or more separate some of the cases. More than 200 miles separates Evansville-area missing persons cases and those of DiBattiste and Mullis.

Mullis' parents came to a downtown Muncie house on Aug. 13 when police searched the structure for evidence related to DiBattiste's disappearance. Delaware County police, who are overseeing the Mullis investigation, said at the time of the search they found nothing to link Mullis to the house.

Besides the mention on Grace's show, articles linking all the missing women — including Lauren Spierer, an Indiana University student missing since 2011 — have been posted on various websites and repeatedly shared on social media.

Byers said linking missing person cases is a way for family members to "push the attribution" — the blame or fault — away from issues their missing loved one might have, including drug abuse and mental health conditions and onto an unknown figure.

"There must be some reason, the family member might say, beyond my daughter or son's control that led to this tragedy," Byers said.

Closure not easy

Tracey Rutel's case was brought to the attention of The Star Press by Andrew Churchill, an Indianapolis architect whose girlfriend was Rutel's neighbor in the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis.

"It's not right," Churchill said in explaining why he's interested in Rutel's disappearance and subsequent death. "I care, as a citizen and compassionate human being, and a lot of things didn't smell right."

“She was planning on coming back. It looked like she was just snatched out of thin air.”

Andrew Churchhill

On Aug. 20, 2013, Rutel's daughter reported to Muncie police that she was afraid something had happened to her mother, who she said suffered from schizophrenia and PTSD, after she left Muncie to return to her home in the Indianapolis area.

On Oct. 16, 2013, a Warren County farmer found a "wrecked" rental car, rented by Rutel in Indianapolis, in a wooded area. The farmer found a body in a field 120 yards from the car.

Indiana State Police said on Oct. 17 that they couldn't positively identify the body as Rutel's remains. State police last week referred The Star Press to Warren County Coroner Sue Cronk, who said Rutel had died of exposure. The woman was identified through dental records.

An ISP officer said Monday that investigators still had no idea why Rutel was on the opposite side of the state from Muncie, where she was reported missing.

The identification of Rutel's remains would appear to close the Muncie Police Department missing person's case initiated more than a year ago.

For Churchill — and anyone who knew a missing person before they went missing — closure comes less easily.

"She was planning on coming back," Churchill said. "It looked like she was just snatched out of thin air."

Contact Keith Roysdon at 765-213-5828 and follow him on Twitter: @keithroysdon